By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 22, 2008; A05

SEDONA, Ariz., Aug. 21 -- Republicans are set to consider a complete rewrite of their political calendar for the 2012 presidential primaries as they gather in Minnesota to officially nominate Sen. John McCain after a tumultuous primary season.

If approved by the delegates to the Republican convention, the new GOP calendar will pack many state primaries into elections on three successive Tuesdays late in the political calendar. The groupings of primaries would rotate every four years so every state would have a chance to go early in the process.

Exceptions would be made for a few states -- including Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada and some small states that often get overlooked in the process. But under the proposed GOP rules, most would be locked into specific dates, a change from the freewheeling 2008 calendar, in which many states raced to the front of the pack, pushing voting earlier than ever before.

"In effect we had a national primary this year," said Robert T. Bennett, the chairman of the Ohio Republican Party and a chief backer of the changes. "If we don't make a change, you will have a total of between 36 to 38 states that will be voting the first Tuesday in February in 2012. By spreading out the primary process into some orderly process benefits the system."

Bennett said the proposal emphasizes the importance of small states where politicians can engage in hand-to-hand politicking that doesn't involve costly ads. "Those are the states that you can get retail politics in," he said.

The idea has been approved by a Republican National Committee panel, but it faces serious opposition from a coalition of large states.

"The assumption or proposition that only the small states can you have retail politics is somewhat misleading and a bit condescending," said Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan Republican Party.

Anuzis is urging his fellow Republican chairmen to leave the calendar largely untouched, though he backs moving the date of the earliest primary to the second week of March, to avoid the holiday campaigning that frustrated politicians and voters last year.

"I would rather stay with what we got," Anuzis said.

The 2008 Republican calendar required that all GOP primaries -- with a small number of exceptions, including Iowa and New Hampshire -- take place after Feb. 4, but it gave no requirements beyond that. The result was a slew of primaries on the same day -- Feb. 5 -- and an uncertain schedule that made planning difficult for candidates.

Decisions by Iowa and New Hampshire to move their voting to the first week in January also meant campaigning around the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

"Most people believe that it's broken," said Ron Kaufman, a member of the RNC rules committee. "The question is, how do you fix it in a way that doesn't have unintended consequences?"

Proponents of the GOP proposal say holding groupings of primary days would prevent the creation of a de facto national primary, when most of the country's population votes on a single day. Such "super Tuesdays" favor well-known, well-funded candidates who have the money to compete.

Opponents argue that the proposal, which gives preference to small states when making the regional selections, would unfairly penalize large states and would rob states of the flexibility they need to respond to the political environment of the time.

The final decision could be decided when McCain weighs in. So far, his campaign has been largely silent on the issue. McCain has criticized the 2008 calendar, but in the end he succeeded in becoming the nominee under the current rules. Several Republicans on both sides of the debate predicted that many delegates at the convention will follow McCain's lead on the issue.

Democrats, too, are taking a look at their calendar. A plan being pushed by their nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, would attempt to reduce the influence of "superdelegates," the elected officials and party regulars who cast their votes independent of the primary results.

But Democratic rules allow their calendar to be modified throughout the next four years. Under GOP rules, any changes the party makes at the convention this year will be binding on the 2012 process, officials said.

The Republican proposal, or another alternative, will be debated by the 168-member Republican National Committee next week. If the members agree on a change, it will then be taken up by the convention delegates in St. Paul.